Skip to main content
Main

Mutton and Lamb Chops

Mutton and lamb chops are broiled over coals, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and served with toast, parsley, peas, or potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton and Lamb Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chops

  1. Broil the chops over hot coals, turning every ten seconds to sear and keep the juices inside.

  2. Broil one-inch thick chops for ten minutes for medium, or eight minutes for rare.

  3. Place the cooked chops on a hot platter.

Season and serve

  1. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter.

  2. Garnish with toast points and parsley or watercress, or serve with peas, French-fried potatoes, or potato balls.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Parsley + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb chops
Provide the meat that is seared over coals and cooked to the chosen doneness.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the cooked chops as they are seasoned.

The step that matters

Turning the chops every ten seconds over hot coals. Frequent turning over intense heat sears the surface gradually, helping build browning while the interior cooks evenly and retains juices. Letting one side sit too long risks scorching it before the center is done.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter, parsley, fried potato, potato):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, parsley, fried potato, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipes